Stories from the road: Pikwakanagan

Hi Everyone ! 

I hope you are all doing well, it's Lea here from the AAE summer team. This past weekend Jen and I travelled all the way up to the Algonquins of Pikwakanagan pow wow for our last time on the road together, and it was a great weekend, filled with heat of course! Like always, the weekend started off with the driving portion and it was a beautiful sunny day on Friday when we headed down and Highway 41, which was a scenic route filled with many bodies of water and forestry. It was so nice especially, considering I have never gone up that way. I think that is the best thing, getting to see places you don't normally go to and see different parts of the beautiful province. There was a lot of "look how pretty that is" taking place as we drove! When we finally arrived, we went to the pow wow grounds to set up for the weekend. The grounds were unfortunately very wet but we just hoped it didn't rain more over night and luckily it didn't.

Saturday was a great sunny day and we were lucky to be in the shaded half of the pow wow, or else we may have melted. The grounds were beautiful and you could tell this pow wow really had a strong hold on and sense of community. As the day progressed, Jen and I met many interesting people and probably had the most alumni come to our booth than any other pow wow this summer. They were all interested in the programs and thought it was amazing that Queen's had such a thing. We also had many educators come and take the materials because they thought it was greatly useful. The strangest thing happened later on in the day- a lady came to our booth from the class of '83 and we got to talking then after she started talking about her apartment and it turns out I live in the exact same building and apartment she had lived in in her undergrad at Queen's! What are the chances? All the way in Golden Lake I meet the lady who lived in my apartment in 1983. We thought that was amazing and so strange! That night we voyaged back to Pembroke, where we were staying, and just relaxed and enjoyed the small town.

Sunday was another lovely day and unfortunately our last. The day certainly went by quick and Grand entry was beautiful as always. Before we knew it we were back on the road to head back to Kingston. Before fully returning we stopped in Eganville because on the way down we had noticed how beautiful this one spot was, so we took in the sunset and it all in and then headed back on the road.  Thank you to everyone who allowed us to attend their pow wows this summer and for making it a wonderful exciting and learning summer. I am glad so many kids are now interested in being future engineers and the parents are happy programs like this exist. Have a wonderful rest of the summer! I hope to see you next time! 

Miigwetch!